


Of Dragons and Alchemy

by EstherA2J, Lovesfic (me23)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alchemy, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Dragons, Fantasy, First Meetings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Steampunk, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 02:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15038468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EstherA2J/pseuds/EstherA2J, https://archiveofourown.org/users/me23/pseuds/Lovesfic
Summary: In a world where skilled alchemists blend magic with science, an experimental "dragon procedure" is meant to end all weakness. But something goes wrong.





	Of Dragons and Alchemy

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my beta, my wonderful sister [Rosawyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosawyn) who went above and beyond brainstorming, cheerleading, and helping me beat my words into some kind of order. Any mistakes are on me. She is awesome.

 

 

When the metal tube opened, bright lights and loud sounds assaulted Steve's eyes and ears, completely disorienting him.  He was too busy blinking and squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head to notice how much more beautiful it all was—though, granted, he was in a warehouse-style lab that wasn’t exactly designed with beauty in mind. He stepped out of the tube that had been way too big for his puny, bony pre-procedure body, but barely held his new enhanced and much larger and more muscular form, and immediately lost his balance.

He would probably have fallen on his face if Stark hadn’t caught him, murmuring softly, “Oops! There you go, big guy. Wow, those are some nice muscles there. Hands off, Stark. You’re a married man. Wow.” Steve realized later that Stark likely didn’t mean for him to hear any of that, underestimating his new and improved hearing. (In the moment, Steve was too overwhelmed to respond and, later, he didn’t want to embarrass his friend, so Stark never did know that Steve had heard.)

As he found his equilibrium, the  _ swish _ of an arrow cutting through the air registered and, before Steve consciously recognized the threat, huge wings burst from his back and wrapped around both Stark and Erskine, pushing the three of them to the floor as Steve went to his knees. The arrow exploded against the hide of one wing, and an acrid burst of smoke filled the air, leaving Steve’s eyes watering and coating the back of his throat with a sharp metallic tang.

Pushing himself to his feet, Steve spun around and leapt into the air toward the catwalks halfway up the walls toward the vaulted ceiling. When he’d first walked into the lab today, the size of the building had overwhelmed him, a vast, cavernous area that made his tiny body feel even smaller in comparison. Now, though, he was grateful for the space that allowed him to stretch out and get some speed as he followed the path of the arrow back to its origin. The attacker had fled, and Steve followed the sound of running feet and panting breath as they fled down a staircase and out the nearest door, strong wings propelling him through the air faster than anyone could hope to run.

Landing just long enough to run through the door into the open air on the attacker’s heels, Steve leapt back into the air and a moment later swooped down to strike the attacker’s shoulders and knock him off his feet. Rolling onto his back, the man glared up at Steve with eyes full of insane religious fervour. “Glory to the Hive,” he hissed. His eyes rolled up into his head, white foam gurgled over his lips, and his body went limp and lifeless.

Pressing his fingers to the attacker’s neck, Steve growled in frustration when he found no pulse, and slammed his fist into the sidewalk—sending large cracks radiating outward through the heavy paving stone. Slowly, he lifted his hand, turning it to see the skinned knuckles. The injury—and even the pain—was substantially less than it would have been yesterday, or this morning.

Rising to his feet in the bright mid-morning light, Steve took stock of himself now that the adrenaline pounding through his whole body was fading away.  He was just outside what appeared to be a clothing store on what was probably a busy street when it wasn’t barely eight in the morning. The ground—or rather sidewalk—cool and hard under his bare feet seemed a lot farther away, which meant he was significantly taller, and every part of himself that he could see was bigger, although his hands and feet had always seemed oversized for his puny body and now they seemed to fit. None of this new body really felt like  _ him _ , though; it was almost like his mind had been transplanted into someone else’s body.

Remembering his flight here, he reached over his shoulder with one hand, but found only smooth skin on his shoulder blade where the wings had been. Erskine had said nothing about retractable wings when he’d briefed Steve before the procedure. Or wings at all, for that matter. Of course, Erskine  _ had _ warned him that the magical component of the procedure could never really be predicted. Steve hadn’t really known  _ what _ to expect, except that he would be stronger and healthier.  It was a  _ dragon _ thing, but still… wings— _ retractable _ wings—weren’t something Steve would have ever guessed would be part of it.

☼☼☼

Steve trails behind Stark and Erskine as they follow Alexander Pierce into the observation room for his lab. The huge space beyond the wall-length window reminds him of his own experience in Erskine’s lab a few weeks ago, but something here feels not just different, but  _ off _ ; there is a superficiality to Pierce’s friendliness, and a coldness to this whole affair. Even the lab itself seems colder, the colours paler, the light both brighter and whiter. Before the dragon procedure, Steve hadn’t felt anything like this kind of—what? hunch? premonition? Maybe he has some kind of dragon intuition now. Or maybe it’s all in his head. He hasn’t really had time yet to get used to his new body and abilities.

As they settle into seats facing the window, Pierce begins to explain the procedure they’re about to witness. Stark and Erskine listen with interest, as apparently this isn’t just going to be repeat of what they’d already accomplished with Steve himself—it’s some sort of “bigger and better” that sounds like a whole lot of sciency words and also sounds like a lot of self-congratulatory bullshit. Movement on the left in the lab below distracts Steve—it’s Pierce’s head alchemist Arnim Zola with a dark haired man about Steve’s age who practically radiates unease. His head is bowed and shoulders curled in as if he’s trying to make himself smaller. Wavy, disheveled dark hair falls over his brow, hiding his eyes. As they reach the centre of the room, they stop and turn to face the huge metal tube nearly identical to Erskine’s, but with additional tweaks that have no purpose Steve can see. Steve sucks in a sharp breath as the dark haired man’s left side comes into view as he turns. He is missing his entire left arm. Where the arm should be, and obviously once was, all that remains is a stump of the shoulder and a mass of angry reddish scars. He curls in on himself, as if he is cold, or as if he is trying to hide the missing limb.

“Yes, we believe that we have taken your research to the next level,” Pierce says, his boastful voice catching Steve’s attention. Is he responding to something Erskine or Stark had said? In any case, it’s even more obvious self-congratulation. “While you were able to improve upon what was already there, we will recreate what is missing.”

“I see.” Erskine adjusts his glasses. “I would like to see the formula you are using.”

Stark shakes his head, frowning. “This sounds significantly more dangerous than what we did. I see your alchemists are wearing protective gear, but what about your subject?”

Pierce waves a hand dismissively. “There is no real risk. The protective suits are only a precaution. And you must allow me some professional secrets, Abraham. I can’t just go telling my competitors everything, now can I?”

“And what kind of security do you have here in case the Hive tries something like they did with us?” Stark asks with superficial indifference. It’s a good question. If there’s one cultist bent on murder, there’s bound to be others. Steve doesn’t know that much about the Hive cult, but they always seem to be either killing someone or trying to kill someone.

“Ah, yes.” Pierce smiles. “That old religion. Don’t worry—my security is the finest you can get. We have nothing to fear from fringe cults or extremists of any kind.”

Steve’s fingers curl into his palms as his gaze returns to the young man below, the “subject” as they called him. He holds his one arm tucked close to his body and, after his initial glance at the machine, bows his head again. Steve frowns.  “He looks scared.”

Pierce shrugs, turning his unconcerned attention to Steve. “Weren’t you nervous before your procedure?” Of course Steve was nervous, not that he would necessarily admit that aloud but you’d have to be insane  _ not _ to be nervous going into something like this—but something about this other man here for the procedure today tells Steve this isn’t nerves but fear. Pierce turns to look out the window, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Of course, I did hear you were quite the tiny ball of rage, so you probably refused to show it.” He turns back to Steve, a bland smile on his face.

Since Steve doesn’t know any of these people, maybe it is just Steve’s imagination. And the biggest danger around Steve’s own procedure turned out to be a Hive cultist who was ultimately a much greater danger to himself than to anyone else.  But Steve can’t shake the feeling he’s right. And if Pierce’s subject truly is afraid… maybe he has reason to be.

Steve’s eyes narrow suddenly, focusing on Pierce, the man who’s managed to rub Steve the wrong way with every single thing he’s done or said so far. Fingernails dig into Steve’s palms and he speaks through a tight jaw. “I don’t know my own strength yet, Mr Pierce. Would you like to test it?”

Erskine lays a hand on Steve’s arm in a quiet reminder of Steve’s increased emotional volatility and impulsiveness since the dragon procedure, but he holds Pierce’s gaze. “Alexander.”

Lifting a hand palm forward, Pierce steps back. “Apologies. I only meant that our subject is a little more… willing to show his emotions. He’ll be fine.”

“Mr Pierce, if I may: we found that one of the side effects of the procedure was... an apparent increase in emotional volatility.” Erskine squeezes Steve’s arm. “It amplifies everything that is inside.”

Pierce nods. “Yes, we read all about that in your paper on the subject. Rest assured that we have made accommodations. There is nothing to worry about.”

Stark raises his eyebrows, but says nothing. Erskine simply nods.

Below, Zola adjusts an intimidating array of knobs and dials while his assistant helps the subject into the machine, strapping him into place . One strap goes around the man’s forehead, pulling his head up and back, and making his face fully visible for the first time. His eyes dart around the room full of fear, and Steve leans forward, gripped with a sudden wild urge to crash through the window and carry him off to somewhere safe and far away. He restrains himself, though, since surely the alchemists know what they’re doing.  Surely this man has consented to the procedure, just as Steve had. Surely they would listen if he were to voice second thoughts at this point.

Zola steps back and folds his arms, watching the machine as it begins to whirr and hum. So far, everything appears to be pretty much the same as it did when Steve went through this. Then, suddenly, the hum rises in pitch to a painful level, the dials begin to spin drunkenly, and Zola is waving his arms and shouting at his assistant.

Steve stands and takes a step towards the window, unsure what he can do, but sure he has to do  _ something _ . A cloud of white smoke—or maybe steam—rises from the both sides of the machine as if twin giant tea kettles were trapped inside, filling the lab with clouds of white. Then the door beside them bangs open, and Zola stumbles in followed closely by his assistant.

“Doctor Zola?” Pierce frowns at him. “What’s happening? Has something gone wrong?”

“Yes!” Zola shoves his tiny glasses up his nose with one finger. “We need to get out of here.” He waves wildly at the window. “Do you see the levels on that? The power’s going through the roof! And I mean that literally! I can’t shut it down!”

Stark steps toward the window, his hands coming out of his pockets—a sure sign something worries him. “If it keeps rising like that,” Stark says, peering at the readings through the swirling smoke, “leaving the building won’t save us. Hell, leaving the country may not.”

“And what about  _ him? _ ” Steve points at the still closed machine, his words clipped with frustration at their callousness. No one made any apparent effort to free the man they strapped into that thing before fleeing the room—they just left him behind. Has everyone but Steve forgotten the “subject”? “We can’t just leave him in there.”

“He’ll be fine—as will we,” Pierce says dismissively. “This facility is built to the highest standards of safety.”

“You don’t understand.” Zola steps forward, his voice and hands shaking. “If those levels keep climbing,  _ nothing _ will protect us!”

A loud crack underscores his words as the window dividing them from the lab below begins to give way. Everyone in the room jumps a bit, flinching away from the window as though it’s about to shower them all in shards of glass. Which it probably is.

“We must evacuate the building,” Erskine puts in, and Stark nods in agreement, grabbing Erskine’s arm to pull him back from the cracking glass.

Steve shakes his head sharply, pushing his anger away to focus on what needs to be done. “There’s no time. I’ll stop this.”

He turns away from their shouts of protest and pushes past Zola at a run to leave the room, slamming the door behind him. With his dragon-enhanced abilities, none of them can possibly stop him.

Bursting through the door, Steve pauses for only a second at the sight of the dazzling sphere of fire that is expanding toward him. Heat caresses and presses into his exposed skin—it feels less like a threat and more like an embrace. He plunges into the flames.

☼☼☼

Pain is relative. And a person gets accustomed to it. When doctors asked Bucky to rate his pain on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst pain he’d ever felt, his ten used to be the appendicitis he’d had as a kid. Then, his arm got torn off, and appendicitis moved down to about a six. Now, the raging fire in every cell of his body makes a joke of every one of those “tens” that came before. He can’t think, can’t move, can’t breathe.

All he knows is pain, and the need to survive. Somehow.

Everything in him fights to breathe, to move, to live. It is as if he is pushing against a barrier, struggling to break through. And then, it breaks. The pressure lifts, the barrier is gone, and he can breathe again.

The silence is gone, replaced by a roaring in his ears. He pushes himself to his feet, opening his eyes to find that the noise is not inside his head. All he sees is flame. He is surrounded by fire so dense and vast he can’t see anything beyond it.

The acrid smell of burning plastics and various chemicals makes his head spin. Instincts war within him, screaming of the danger of fire while simultaneously welcoming the flames as familiar. His wants to run from the fire, and he wants to embrace the flames. He shrinks away from their seeking fingers even as he wants to draw them close, to wrap them around himself like a blanket.

The heat from so much fire should be unbearable, and yet it is comfortable, even pleasant. Like curling up in front of a roaring fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate. Has he ever done that? It feels like a memory, but he cannot place it.

A figure appears, a man, walking through the inferno. The flames reach out to curl around him and caress him just as they are trying to do with Bucky’s own body. He is the most beautiful person Bucky has ever seen.

The other man reaches out a hand toward Bucky, the light of a thousand flames painting gold and amber patterns across his skin. It’s clear that he is here to help, but the doctors will get him too, and the flames cannot save the two of them—perhaps they can shield them for a time, but not forever. The doctors wore protective gear, didn’t they? The flames are growing, raging, stronger and higher. But all fires burn themselves out in time. Bucky and the other man have to leave.

Bucky grabs the other man and leaps into the sky.

☼☼☼

Air rushes past them, cold and clean, erasing the heat of the fire they leave behind. Bucky clings to his rescuer, this man he rescued, terrified that he will drop the other man, that Bucky himself will fall.

Bucky misses the fire. And yet, the clear pure air is a relief after the nausea-inducing stench of the lab. And Bucky is free. He stretches his wings and tips his face toward the sun.  That beautiful ball of fire, so far away and yet still offering warmth.

Wait.  _ Wings? _ Bucky lurches and spins wildly, losing his equilibrium, and he is falling. His arms tighten on a warm body and that person squeezes Bucky back, taking over control and now they are spinning slower and slower in gentle circles until the two of them gently touch the ground.

“It’s okay,” the other man murmurs into Bucky’s ear the whole way down. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

And he doesn’t.

☼☼☼

You know how a person sometimes sees something out of the corner of their eye, but when they turn and look, there’s nothing there? That’s how Bucky’s left arm has felt since he lost it in the war. If he doesn’t look at it, he can still feel it, still flex his muscles, open and close his hand. If he didn’t look, he’d forget. It was easy to believe he could still reach out with that hand, still touch with those fingers. The doctors told him to expect phantom pain, but no one warned him about phantom normalcy.

It took Bucky weeks to learn how to walk without stumbling over his own feet. The lack of what comparatively was such a small amount of weight on one side of his body kept pulling him off balance.

☼☼☼

They land on a mountaintop, way out in the middle of the ass-end of nowhere, and Bucky is suddenly and awkwardly aware that he’s holding onto this stranger as if he’s Bucky’s security blanket. He quickly lets the other man go and steps back, and immediately loses his balance all over again. There’s too much weight on odd parts of Bucky’s body. Weight that once was… and weight that never was. It’s all too much, all at once.

Catching himself against a nearby rocky outcropping, Bucky looks down and can’t make sense of what he’s seeing. Blue and silver scales shimmer up and down the arm that shouldn’t be there, catching the sunlight and reflecting a rainbow back into his eyes. His vision blurs and he shakes his head sharply. His head still feels right, so that’s something anyway.

“Hey there,” a soft voice interrupts Bucky’s shocked disbelief and confusion. “Are you all right?”

Bucky had almost forgotten the other man was there. Bucky raises his eyes to stare at him rather than at the impossible arm that must be part of a dream, or a hallucination.

He looks back at Bucky with the kindest eyes Bucky’s ever seen and offers his hand to shake. “I’m Steve.”

Bucky clasps Steve’s hand, relieved at the ordinariness of the gesture. “Bucky,” he says,not sure why he offers him the childhood nickname rather than his legal name of James, but it feels right. His mom always called him ‘Bucky’. Maybe ‘Bucky’ is what his close friends would still call him if he had any close friends. He’s just met Steve, but... Bucky would like to think of Steve as a close friend.

“You probably feel a bit disoriented right now,” Steve says, and Bucky snorts. A  _ bit? _ Steve smiles at Bucky’s reaction. “Okay, maybe more than a bit. The dragon procedure isn’t easy.” His smile vanishes and his eyes darken. “Something went wrong. There were no explosions when I had  my procedure.”

Bucky’s eyes widen. “You’re Steve  _ Rogers _ .” Bucky’s an idiot. Of  _ course _ he’s Rogers. What other Steve would be there at Bucky’s procedure, walking through fire and saving Bucky’s ass? Since Pierce and Zola brought Bucky in, all they’ve talked about is Stark and Erskine’s success and how they will improve upon it.

Steve laughs, ducking his head in an endearingly bashful manner. “Yeah. But please: call me Steve.”

Bucky nods, then pulls in a deep breath and faces his unease head on. “You’ve got excellent eyesight since your procedure, then. Can you tell me what you see on my left side?”

Steve’s gaze drops toward Bucky’s left side. “It looks like a dragon arm.” He sounds thoughtful. “Pierce said they were going to try to recreate something missing.”

“It’s not…  _ real _ .” It can’t be real. It can’t  _ last _ . And Bucky can’t lose his arm all over again.

Steve steps forward and slowly, gently reaches out and lifts the arm to cradle it in his large hands. Bucky feels every touch as if it really is Bucky’s own arm Steve is caressing. “It looks real,” Steve says softly. “It feels real.”

“Yeah.” Bucky can’t help agreeing, though right now he doesn’t know what feels real. He looks down again, his eyes drawn to the glimmering colours almost against his will. Steve’s fingertips glide over the scales, sending shivers up into Bucky’s body. Bucky wants to pull away, and Bucky wants Steve to do that forever. It’s like the fire all over again. “It’s…”

“Beautiful.” Steve lets go and steps back, and Bucky’s both relieved and disappointed. “It’s beautiful.”

Bucky lifts the arm and turns it under the sun, watching the light bounce off the smooth, glossy layers. “I guess it is.” It moves just like his arm, only maybe a bit more easily, although that could be an illusion caused by the scales. It feels like Bucky’s arm, and it doesn’t feel like Bucky’s arm.

“When I was growing up,” Steve says softly, “I hated my body. Pretty much… everything about it. It was so weak, so often sick, so easily damaged. I wanted to fight the injustice I saw all around me, but the bullies kept slapping me back down every time I tried to stand up to them.” A smile curves his lips and humour glints in his eyes. “I never stopped trying, though. And I made some friends who fought beside me.” He holds out a hand, palm up. “I’ll fight beside you if you want.”

☼☼☼

When he stepped into the fire, Steve’s only thought was saving the others and, especially, helping the man at the centre of that fire, Bucky. Thinking back, he’s not entirely sure how he knew that helping Bucky would put an end to the alarming expansion of the lab fire, but as Bucky was carrying him away, it was clear that it had in fact worked—with Bucky no longer at the center of it, the fire still burned, but it was clearly calmer and moving towards the burning out stage. But now that Steve has accomplished his goal he isn’t sure what to do. Stark and Erskine will be looking for him, and, of course, Pierce and Zola will be looking for Bucky. While Steve would like to reassure his friends, he has no desire to see Bucky back in the hands of the men who would have left him to burn while they saved themselves.

Steve holds out his hand, offering Bucky what he has to offer: friendship and understanding. “I’ll fight beside you if you want.”

Bucky stares at Steve’s hand for several long moments, then slowly places his hand—the regular human one—into Steve’s. “Okay.” His voice is barely a whisper.

Gently wrapping his fingers around Bucky’s hand, Steve says, “Erskine and Stark can help you. Like they’ve helped me.” They’re good men, both of them.

The scales on Bucky’s dragon arm flash in the sunlight as his fist clenches. His eyes meet Steve’s, wide and luminous. “I don’t have to go back?” There is a slight tremor in his voice.

“No.” Steve’s fingers tighten reassuringly as the knowledge hits him in the gut that he was right. Bucky was scared. Bucky’s still scared. So much of what Pierce told Steve turned out to be lies. How many lies has he told Bucky? “You don’t have to go back. You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to go or do anything you don’t want to do.”

Bucky’s mouth curves into something that is almost a smile and tension bleeds out of the set of his shoulders. “Okay.”

Steve smiles, but his jaw clenches as he thinks about Pierce and Zola. Obviously they didn’t tell Bucky anywhere close to enough information about the procedure. And, if they got his consent at all, it wasn’t informed consent. It’s such a contrast to how Stark and Erskine handled Steve’s procedure—they couldn’t be sure of all the risks and possible side effects, so they told him exactly that: they weren’t sure, there were unknown variables and things they couldn’t predict. Steve might not have known exactly what he was getting into, but he went in with both eyes open, accepting the unknown factors as risks he was willing to take. And that’s the way it should be.

When Steve was a child, he once came upon a younger, smaller boy who was beset by several large bullies. With no hesitation or thought to his own safety, Steve told the bigger kids off, getting right into their faces despite the fact that he wasn’t much bigger than the boy they were tormenting, and much smaller than even the smallest of the bullies.

He was lucky, as usual, that Peggy was nearby and came to his rescue, fists flying. In the face of two small fearless crazy people, the bullies showed their true colours and took to their heels.

The look in that little boy’s eyes when Steve and Peggy helped him up and dusted him off was very like the look Bucky has in his eyes when Steve tells him he doesn’t have to go back to Pierce and Zola. It is a look that makes Steve smile even as it breaks his heart and makes him want to punch someone.

Then Bucky’s eyes darken, and he slams his dragon fist into the outcropping beside him. The solid stone shatters, and Steve’s wings burst forth to shield his face from flying rock and sand.

Bucky’s shocked gaze moves back and forth between his own arm and Steve’s wings. “You have… wings?”

“I do.” Steve lowers his wings and extends one in front of himself. “You can touch it if you want.”

Hesitantly, Bucky reaches out with his human hand until his fingers just graze the edge of the membrane, sending a shivering ripple through the whole wing. Bucky’s eyes widen and his lips part in amazement. “It’s beautiful,” he whispers.

Feeling heat rising in his cheeks, Steve shrugs, sending another ripple through his wings. “Thanks.” He hasn’t gotten any better at accepting compliments, despite how many he’s received since his procedure. Of course, the vast majority of people have been complimenting him on the more human and ‘normal’ aspects of his new appearance. It’s even stranger to have someone appreciate the strange beauty of his wings. He’s still getting used to his new body, and no matter which part of it a person praises it feels odd to be commended for something he did little to nothing to achieve. All Steve himself really did was show up. Stark and Erskine with their alchemy, their machines and needles and combined knowledge, did the rest.

“Did it… hurt?” Bucky’s fingers trail along the smooth bone ridge at the leading edge of Steve’s wing, the memory of pain shadowing his face.

Steve swallows. Bucky could be asking about anything from extending the wings to using them, but Steve somehow knows the question refers to the dragon procedure itself. “A little.”

Bucky nods sharply, acknowledging the understatement. His voice sounds a little rough when he says, “Yeah.”

Steve covers Bucky’s hand with his own. He has no words for Bucky, but perhaps he doesn’t need any at the moment. Steve and Bucky have been through the same thing, or at least through exceptionally similar things. They understand each other better than anyone else ever could, and that bonds them.

Bucky takes a step back from Steve. His dark hair swings to cover part of his face as he ducks his head a bit, not quite hiding an embarrassed smile. “I… just realized we’re both naked.”

Suddenly self-conscious as well, Steve rubs at the back of his neck. “Uh… yeah.” He presses his lips together and shifts his weight a bit from one bare foot to the other, the rocky ground pressing back against him, hard and uneven, biting into the soles of his feet. Bucky carried Steve and Steve carried Bucky, pressed body to body as they flew, but just now some sort of sense of propriety or modesty is creeping back. Perhaps just a sense that he  _ should _ feel embarrassed. Standing out here in broad daylight. In front of an especially good looking naked man. While naked himself. “We are.”

“I guess the fire burned our clothes away,” Bucky says, looking down over his own body. “It would make sense.” He raises his eyes to Steve, his gaze slightly perplexed. “But our hair didn’t burn.”

Rubbing one hand back through his hair, Steve laughs and shrugs. It feels the same as it had that morning, just maybe a little dirtier—some sweat for sure, and a bit of ash and smoke. “Guess ‘cause it’s part of us?”

“And you have  _ wings _ ,” Bucky breathes, staring anew at Steve.

“Not to, uh, freak you out or anything…” Steve clears his throat. “But—” He gestures to Bucky. “You have wings as well.”

“Oh.” Bucky flexes his wings a bit, bringing them forward to curl about his body, staring at them with the same intensity he’d just been using on Steve. “I… flew too. Didn’t I?”

Steve nods. “You did.”

Bucky runs his human hand over a curve of smooth dragon skin over bone at the edge of his own wing. “I have wings.” He sounds awed and a little frightened.

“Yeah.” Steve stretches one wing out to just touch Bucky’s wing. “It’s part of the dragon thing. You know: dragons have wings, and we’re part dragon now.”

“Right.” Bucky lifts his left arm and flexes the fingers, watching the skin glimmer in the sun. “I’m strong now.” He meets Steve’s eyes, his gaze fierce. “No one can tell me what to do.”

Steve smiles. “No they can’t.” And he’ll be damned if he lets anyone get away with trying.

☼☼☼

 


End file.
